The project
The TSC-project comprises a research group at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg. It is led by Anuscheh Farahat and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through its Emmy-Noether-Programme.
Read more about the project and current activities at www.tsc-project.org
The context
National legislative autonomy in socio-economic matters is increasingly limited by political and economic interdependencies between EU member states and regulation at the European level. This has become particularly salient during the Eurozone crisis, which began in 2008. The loss of national autonomy has given rise to political and legal conflicts over the disparate adjustment costs and burdens resulting from progressive integration and common political or economic projects. The core hypothesis of this project can be summarized as: The combination of limited political autonomy at the national level and increasingly executive decision-making on distributional regimes at the supranational level puts at risk the political inclusion of those groups who are negatively affected by those supranational decisions.
Destructive Potential of TSC
The conflicts resulting from this constellation can be understood as transnational solidarity conflicts (TSC). During the almost ten years of economic and financial crisis in the EU, such conflicts have significantly intensified and become much more visible. Today, disputes about transnational solidarity in the EU are expressed as conflicts about political preferences in the EU. This has led to a politicization of the EU as whole. As significant political changes on the European level do not seem feasible, political action is increasingly directed against the EU itself. As a consequence, transnational solidarity conflicts bear the risk of jeopardizing the European integration project.
Relevance of appropriate mechanisms of conflict resolution
Conflict theory approaches remind us that social conflicts always have both a productive and a destructive potential. Articulating opposing views and interests is nothing to be avoided per se. Whether or not conflicts prove to be integrative largely depends on the availability of adequate and legitimate mechanisms of conflict resolution. Such mechanism need to be designed in a way that they channel destructive potential of conflicts and contribute to compromises. Conflict resolution may operate through political, social or legal mechanisms.
Constitutional and apex courts as authorities of conflict resolution
Despite their transnational nature and the increasing politicization of the field, however, solidarity conflicts in the EU are largely being dealt with by domestic constitutional and apex courts. Constitutional and apex courts thereby become crucial authorities of conflict resolution in the EU.
The TSC-project examines these research questions by analyzing the decisions of six constitutional and apex courts (hereafter: Constitutional courts) representing core debtor and creditor countries in transnational solidarity conflicts during the Eurozone crisis (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Germany). In addition, it also takes into account relevant jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The project is composed of six sub-projects:
Cooperations
In cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, the TSC-project coordinates an interdisciplinary working group on Structural Changes of Conflict Resolution in Europe led by Anuscheh Farahat and Christoph Krenn.
Team members: Marius Hildebrand
Principal Investigator: Anuscheh Farahat